Therapy with Men and Boys: A Guide for Clinicians
Therapy with Men and Boys: A Guide for Clinicians
Podcast Description
Every mental health provider who works with men and/or boys knows how challenging it can be. Therapy requires our male clients to be vulnerable and admit their need for help. That's pretty terrifying for a lot of men and boys. The good news is that there are clinicians and researchers who have devoted their careers to learning how to overcome these challenges. In this podcast, we will try to fill the gap in your clinical knowledge, with the help of the leading experts in working with boys and men, who will share their wisdom and tools with all of us.About your co-hosts:Dr. Erica Liebman is a clinical psychologist based in Philadelphia who splits her time between her private practice working with individuals and couples, performing assessments of military veterans and working on various projects that further the awareness of issues facing men and boys. She is a board member of the Society for the Psychology of Men & Masculinities, a division of the American Psychological Association. Her two main foci in this realm is advocating for increased education about boys and men in APA psychology programs as well as helping to bridge the divide between men and women through compassion and understanding. Dr. Liebman can be reached via her website www.ericaliebmanpsyd.com Dr. David Shepard is a practicing Los Angeles-based psychologist with over 30 years of experience specializing in working with men, both individually and as the male parter in couple therapy. Dr. Shepard is a member of the Society for Psychology of Men & Masculinities, a division of the American Psychological Association, and a past-president of the division. He is Professor Emeritus in Counseling at California State University, Fullerton, and the author of numerous publications about working with men and making couple therapy work for male partners. He can be reached at [email protected]. His website is drdavidshepard.com
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast focuses on mental health challenges faced by boys and men, with episodes like Building Relationships and Uncovering Emotions diving into how to establish a therapeutic alliance and invite men to express their emotions, while also addressing topics like masculinity, vulnerability in therapy, and strategies for encouraging openness.
Every mental health provider who works with men and/or boys knows how challenging it can be. Therapy requires our male clients to be vulnerable and admit their need for help. That’s pretty terrifying for a lot of men and boys. The good news is that there are clinicians and researchers who have devoted their careers to learning how to overcome these challenges. In this podcast, we will try to fill the gap in your clinical knowledge, with the help of the leading experts in working with boys and men, who will share their wisdom and tools with all of us.
About your co-hosts:
Dr. Erica Liebman is a clinical psychologist based in Philadelphia who splits her time between her private practice working with individuals and couples, performing assessments of military veterans and working on various projects that further the awareness of issues facing men and boys. She is a board member of the Society for the Psychology of Men & Masculinities, a division of the American Psychological Association. Her two main foci in this realm is advocating for increased education about boys and men in APA psychology programs as well as helping to bridge the divide between men and women through compassion and understanding. Dr. Liebman can be reached via her website www.ericaliebmanpsyd.com
Dr. David Shepard is a practicing Los Angeles-based psychologist with over 30 years of experience specializing in working with men, both individually and as the male parter in couple therapy. Dr. Shepard is a member of the Society for Psychology of Men & Masculinities, a division of the American Psychological Association, and a past-president of the division. He is Professor Emeritus in Counseling at California State University, Fullerton, and the author of numerous publications about working with men and making couple therapy work for male partners. He can be reached at [email protected]. His website is drdavidshepard.com
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We keep hearing two things about AI Therapy and mental health — it's either going to replace therapists, or it's going to ruin a generation of men who talk to their phones for help instead of a person. However, as we know from most new technologies, there can be downsides, but also upsides. Clinicians need to know about both. In this episode, we go straight to Dr. Matt Englar-Carlson, someone who's actually inside the world of AI Therapy developers, someone who knows AI Therapy’s potential for good and for harm.
Dr. Englar-Carlson directs the Center for Boys and Men at Cal State Fullerton, helped write the APA's guidelines on working with males, and is a clinical advisor to two of the leading AI mental health apps, one of which, Mental, is designed specifically for men and boys. The second is, The Path, which was created to help anyone seeking answers to their psychological struggles. He's seen the backend — what these tools actually do at 2am when a guy is alone and won't call a therapist, how they handle suicide risk in real time, and where they fall apart.
We get into the critical distinction between a chatbot (e.g., Chat GPT) and AI Therapy, why Matt calls it ”a gateway drug” to treatment with an actual human, and the uncomfortable question every therapist is quietly asking: are we about to lose our jobs? Spoiler — his answer surprised us, and it might surprise you too.
If you work with men and boys, or you're just trying to figure out where the line is between helpful tech and something to worry about, this conversation will certainly increase your knowledge about AI, and might very well change how you think about it.
Dr. Englar-Carlson recommends the following links. The first two are for the two apps, Mental and The Path:
getmental.com
thepath.ai
From The Dispatch. Men are Struggling: Can an App Help Them?https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:07948490-b1af-4e97-ba3e-65aa85dc945a
From ExecutiveGov (HHS) : HHS Vows to Prioritize Guidance, Coordination for AI Adoption in Clinical Care. https://www.executivegov.com/articles/hhs-artificial-intelligence-clinical-care-rfi
Two From the American Psychological Association:
Discussing AI Use in Therapy: https://www.apa.org/topics/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning/discussing-ai-use-therapy
Your Patients are Using AI: Here's How to Talk with Them About It https://www.apa.org/topics/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning/practitioners-talk-ai-patients
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